Thursday, May 31, 2012

Is China Trying to Split ASEAN?

Defense leaders from around Southeast Asia are meeting in Phnom Penh this week for the 6th
ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM). The theme of the get together –
“Enhancing ASEAN Unity for a Harmonized and Secure Community” – smacks
of doublespeak: unity and harmony within ASEAN are sorely lacking at the
moment, and no-one really thinks the ministerial meeting is going to
rediscover them.

In the anarchy of the international arena, a club like the
Association of Southeast Asian Nations ought to be a reassuring place to
be. The organization gives its ten members – small or medium-sized
players in geopolitical terms – the opportunity to close ranks when
dealing with the greater powers, and to speak with one voice loud enough
to be heard in Beijing, Washington and any other place that needs to
listen.

In particular, ASEAN has a China problem. Ask the ten members about
China, and you’ll get a kaleidoscope of opinions about what that country
represents. Some ASEAN countries are very much pro-China: their own
economic development is tied closely to Beijing’s, and they are
comfortable with the political implications of their China connections.
Others are cooler on relations with Beijing: they balance a wariness of
Chinese influence with the obvious benefits of a healthy trading
relationship. And finally, there are those that feel threatened by China
and regard themselves as targets (or at least potential targets) of
Chinese assertiveness.

Unity on the question of how to handle
China has therefore eluded ASEAN. And given the association’s nature,
this is unsurprising: neutrality and non-intervention, not unity and
collectivism, are ASEAN’s most cherished principles.

Nonetheless, it’s clear that the member states which feel most
insecure about China – the Philippines and Vietnam – had hoped for at
least some ASEAN solidarity in managing their territorial disputes with
Beijing in the South China Sea. They didn’t get it. Philippine proposals
in 2011 for the creation of an ASEAN-China “Zone of Peace, Freedom,
Friendship and Cooperation” in the South China Sea were hung out to dry
by the other ASEAN countries, with only the Vietnamese
expressing real support. Most instead backed a bilateral approach to
arguments with China: in other words, they said they’d rather not get
involved.

As the stand-off between China and the Philippines
at Scarborough Shoal – a disputed territory in the South China Sea –
comes close to entering its third month, there’s certainly hope that
diplomacy might still provide a solution to the complex problem of
China-ASEAN tensions. This week’s ADMM could make some headway. More
significantly, ASEAN officials last week completed a draft version
of a new Code of Conduct governing behavior in the South China Sea;
once finalized internally, this will be presented to China for
discussion over the summer, though Beijing is presumed to have already
had some unofficial input.

However, in ASEAN’s security discussions China has become the
elephant in the room. At the ADMM, China is quite literally in the room:
Defense Minister General Liang Guanglie is attending
the event in Phnom Penh, even though this isn’t a gathering of the ADMM
Plus, of which China is an official member. As for the drafting of the
new Code of Conduct, there are concerns that the proposed regime will
fail to take the all-important step: the setting out of clear rules in
disputed zones. China is the constraining factor, with the draftees wary
of presenting Beijing with a code that it cannot accept. But equally,
drafting a code that fails to get to the heart of the South China Sea’s
problems would be to squander a once-in-a-decade opportunity.

There’s no doubt that ASEAN is split on the issue of China and
territorial disputes. What is less clear is whether ASEAN’s disunity is
simply playing into China’s hands, allowing it to deal with each country
individually, or whether Beijing is actively driving a wedge between
ASEAN members that oppose China and those that are more sympathetic to
the Chinese position.

“Beijing has consistently pursued a strategy to prevent the South
China Sea issue [becoming] one between China and ASEAN,” suggests Zhang
Baohui, an associate professor at Lingnan University. “It has argued
that the any conflict is bilateral. To this end, Beijing has succeeded
by using a few Southeast Asian countries to prevent the emergence of a
united ASEAN agenda or strategy.” Zhang points to China’s economic
leverage over Cambodia and Thailand in particular, and also to the fact
that these two countries (and several others within ASEAN) have no
direct stake in the South China Sea disputes. Their membership of ASEAN
is their only real link to these affairs.

The spotlight has fallen on Cambodia especially: the country is
China’s closest regional ally and a major beneficiary of economic aid
from Beijing. It’s also the current ASEAN chair, which has given rise to
suggestions that China is currently exerting undue influence on ASEAN
through Cambodia at what it obviously a sensitive time for China-ASEAN
relations.

Hun Sen, the Cambodian prime minister, was moved to declare publicly last month that his country had “not been bought”
by China as a means of influencing ASEAN policy. However, even in
public it hasn’t been difficult to see how Beijing links the issue of
economic assistance with political support for China’s stance. When Hu
met Hun Sen at the end of March, Reuters,
for example, reported their discussions as follows: “Chinese President
Hu Jintao asked close economic ally Cambodia on March 31 not to push
talks on the vexed issue of the South China Sea "too fast" as he pledged
to double bilateral trade to $5 billion and announced fresh aid to the
impoverished country.”

Irrespective of the extent of Beijing’s control over Cambodia, its
ability to split ASEAN – whether intentional or coincidental – is
undeniable. However, China is also one of the few issues with the power
to unite ASEAN. According to Mark Thompson, director of the Southeast
Asia Research Centre at the City University of Hong Kong,
non-intervention remains central to the ASEAN philosophy, with the
result that ASEAN members are naturally in favor of balancing the
competing influences of the US and China.

However, in its territorial disputes with the Philippines and
Vietnam, China risks overstepping the mark, and violating ASEAN’s core
principles. Chinese military action could therefore trigger the very
circling of ASEAN wagons that Beijing’s policy has so far successfully
prevented. “At the moment I think China has played its cards smartly
enough,” says Thompson. “If ASEAN stands for anything, it stands for
neutrality. Generally, the principle of the ASEAN Way, of
non-interference, is accepted and even believed in, and so if push comes
to shove you could see ASEAN rally [against China]. China understands
that, and that’s why it has been acting relatively cautiously.”

China’s involvement in ASEAN constrains the group’s behavior, and
militates against unity.

But equally, China’s involvement in ASEAN is a
self-constraint: only by treading relatively softly can Beijing continue
to handle territorial issues bilaterally, as it prefers, as opposed to
having to tackle ASEAN en bloc. So for all the damage that the
long-running stand-off at Scarborough Shoal might be inflicting on
ASEAN, it is at least encouraging to conclude that military action in
the South China Sea is not in Beijing’s playbook. China can only divide
and conquer ASEAN politically, not militarily.

1 comment:

Some of Cambodian people are still don't understand and know much about Hanoi-Vietnamese communist. Hanoi-Vietnamese communist can be eaten raw of Cambodian people if Cambodia hasn't backed up by China. it was so sad that a few of Cambodian people did NOT understand about the fact and acted stupidity. Hopefully, China will help Cambodian people to live a better life and prosperity.